Tapestry of Dark Souls

by Elaine Bergstrom

  Teeth bit into my wrist and leg, hands closed around my neck. Flailing to wrench my arm and foot free, I gasped for air. The thrashing sounds of my own limbs and the jabbing pain grew dulled.

  On the edge of shock, I sensed something that startled the monstrous pack. They pulled away and scattered, their screams tearing into the damp silence of the night. Their cries were answered by the challenging snarl of a wolf.

  The black monster must have come to seek its revenge. So be it. I had defeated it once. I could do so again. My hand groped for my knife. I had just managed to grasp its hilt when the wolf’s huge body pressed against me.

  The world returned in a series of quick, unformed images. A bright ceiling. A white-haired man bending over me. A woman in a red gown sitting beside me. Much later—pale blue walls patterned with interlaced daisy chains. Strands of tinkling brass bells in front of an open window. My silver knife on a table beside me. A copper kettle steaming over a small stone stove. A polished brass mirror over a carved wooden table, its top covered with perfumes and pots of rouge.

  And singing … beautiful melodic notes that rose to incredible heights like soaring hawks over my homeland. My head was propped up on pillows and turned toward the stove and window. When I tried to move, my body wouldn’t obey me. I looked down at my arms, resting on a soft fur coverlet, and saw that they were thickly wrapped in bandages. One of the wounds had bled, leaving a dark red stain on the white gauze.

  The song continued, rippling like laughter through my mind. And though the room’s pale beauty seemed out of character for the woman, I knew who the singer must be. “Maeve?” I called, my voice creating a strident contrast to her mellow tones.

  “So you woke.” She came into my range of vision, her orange blouse looking bright in the pale blue room. She carried a cup of tea. Her hands, as they helped me sit farther up in the bed, were delicate, but strong. I tried to speak again, but she covered my lips with one finger, then arranged the pillows behind me and held the cup to my mouth so I could drink. Swallowing was difficult. I gagged and coughed, and my head pounded.

  “The blow to your head and the bite on your neck are the worst of your injuries. The rest look far more serious than they are.” Maeve smiled at my confusion. “There are reasons for the town’s shutters, beyond their pretty looks,” she said. “The ‘wee beasties’ the Tepestanis call them—a far too poetic word for goblins, I think, even those smaller and hairier than most of their perfidious ilk. Goblins have a taste for human flesh. You are lucky I heard your screams.”

  I looked at her face and arms. Maeve had no marks on her. I commented on her fighting skill.

  “I’ve hunted them before,” she said with pride. “Tepestanis have little use for their flesh or their pelts. I agree about the meat, but as to the fur on their bellies …” She lifted the cover from my feet so I could see the quilt’s handsome sunburst pattern of gold, muted browns, and black.

  “They don’t value something as beautiful as this?”

  “They do when they think it comes from the great cats of Markovia. Since I sell the quilts for six times what they’re really worth, I’ve no real interest in enlightening them.”

  I smiled, not daring to risk the pain of laughter, and took a few more sips of the tea she offered, saying nothing until a shadow filled the window.

  “Ivar!” Maeve whispered, irritation clear in her voice.

  He leaned through the window. “I thought you might be awake,” he said to me, ignoring the woman. “Dirca sent me to see how you are. Andor said …” He paused to walk to the door and knock politely.

  Though it clearly galled her to do so, Maeve let him in. He stood at a respectful distance and went on.

  “Andor said to tell you that your things are as you left them. He said he has Vhar’s money.”

  “Vhar?” It took a moment to even recall my husband’s face.

  “It’s yours now, of course.”

  “Mine?”

  “After you two disappeared from the inn, we heard that goblins killed both of you. But here you are, escaped from their clutches.”

  “Vhar wasn’t so lucky, tales tell. They say that the goblins wounded you badly and that you camped in a cave just inside the border of Markovia until you were well enough to return to Linde,” Maeve added.

  “Is that right?”

  “Perhaps I was dazed and wandered through Markovia until I found my wandering wits,” I said, my smile far from serious.

  “No one wanders witless through Markovia and survives to tell of it,” Maeve said, watching Ivar warily as she spoke.

  I had thought them friends, engaged in friendly banter, until Maeve left us for a moment. As soon as she disappeared, Ivar whispered, “Remember your pledge to the Guardians. The woman lusts for the tapestry, so mind your words well. I will come again tomorrow.”

  As soon as Ivar had gone, Maeve reappeared and sat by me, her beautiful eyes fixed on mine. “Is your husband really dead?” she asked, and I realized, finally, that she knew nothing but what little she had guessed.

  “I don’t know where he is,” I responded, pleased to be able to tell her the truth, however indirectly.

  Maeve didn’t press me for details. I sensed that she knew where I had been for all those days.

  Perhaps that was even understandable since, as I found out that night and the nights thereafter, Maeve’s nighttime hunts ranged for miles. While the other townsfolk locked their shutters and told stories by their fires, Maeve braved the predators that walked the shadows of the moon. She usually returned with pieces of goblin pelts, which she would cure in the rear of her enclosed garden so the stench wouldn’t fill the house.

  I never spoke of her habits when Ivar came to visit. Instead I told him how attentive she was in caring for me, how much better I felt. Then, on one of the rare moments when we were alone, I asked bluntly why he mistrusted her.

  “Her violet eyes, her black hair, her bewitching voice. She’s from Kartakass—a fair-haired folk—but she’s not fair haired. A Kartakan with black hair comes from bestial stock, no doubt about it. They’re a clannish people, Kartakans. She didn’t leave that land willingly.”

  “You’re not from Tepest either,” I retorted. Maeve had treated me with more kindness than I had ever shown a stranger, and I wouldn’t be disloyal.

  He paused then, perhaps sensing that if he divulged some of his background, I would be less wary of him. “My wife and infant daughter live in Gundarak. My wife’s family means much to her, my daughter’s future much to me. In Gundarak, families who have female children are fined, as if being a woman is some sort of crime. The fine is far too large for a land as poor as Gundarak, so I have come here to make enough money for my daughter’s ransom. My wife’s sister Dirca, Andor, and I own the inn and stables.”

  “What happens if you can’t pay the fine?”

  “Sondra will be given to Duke Gundar, the lord of the land. There are as many stories of what becomes of his booty as there are families mourning their losses. All the tales are grim.”

  “And, which do you believe?”

  “I think he eats them.”

  Ivar had never seemed anything but sensible. He believed this ludicrous story, and his belief alone convinced me. Throughout the time he sat with me, he told me the strange, sad story of that terrible land. Sometime during his account, Maeve joined us, running a carved bone comb through her midnight hair as she stared at her reflection in a mirror.

  “And what of Tepest?” I asked when he had finished.

  “The people believe that no one rules the land, but I know better,” Ivar replied. “The storm that nearly killed you trapped two young shepherds in the hills. They were found only this morning with their bones picked clean.”

  “The village should hunt the goblins,” Maeve said derisively, speaking for the first time since Ivar had begun the account. “Instead they cower by their fires and pray their families won’t be touched, as if their gods listen to cowards.”

&nb
sp; “You can’t change the way people think or what they believe, Maeve,” Ivar replied, his tone weary, as if they had discussed this many times before.

  “Of course not. I’ve never tried.” She winked at me as she turned away. I thought of her dangerous night hunts. How heroic she seemed to me then.

  How little I knew her.

  That evening, as she brought me tea and venison stew, I took her hand, pressing it against my cheek. “You are so good to me, Maeve,” I said.

  “I see my mother in you,” she responded and quickly turned away.

  She planned on going to the inn that night. I watched as she replaced her daytime working clothes with a shimmering blouse of deep violet, with flowing lavender sleeves, loose breeches in blue suede, and soft black boots that laced to her knees. She darkened her eyelids with kohl, her long lashes brushed her rouged cheeks, and her hair shone with bright feathers. She had a deadly beauty, far from the simpering femininity I had been trained to adopt; the steel blade she carried in her belt was curved and sharp. No one would trouble her. No one would dare.

  After she had gone, I pushed myself to my feet and, leaning heavily on the cane Maeve had made for me, walked to her dressing table and sat in front of her mirror. There were circles under my eyes, a sickly pallor to my skin. I lifted her comb and began to slowly run it through my plain, brown hair. I had been in bed far too long. It was time to begin living again.

  That night, the moon was full. As I prepared for bed, I sensed its pull, could almost hear the chant of the Guardians standing motionless outside the doors to the stone shrine. If Maeve had been at home, we could have talked or played one of the many card games she had taught me during my convalescence. With her still gone, I had no one to help take my mind off the past.

  Later, I could recall pulling back the covers to my bed, but I remembered nothing after that until I woke, shivering and naked, in the courtyard behind Maeve’s cottage.

  Since Maeve sometimes remained out all night, I had no way of knowing if she had returned yet. I crept through the dark cottage to the solace of my bed and fell asleep. When I woke later, Maeve was home, idly dealing cards by the window. It seemed then that she hadn’t noticed I had been gone. Later I discovered she had her own reasons for ignoring my absence.

  The next night was a repeat of the last. Early the following morning, I awoke with blood on my hands and the musty smell of some animal on my body. The newly formed scar where the wolf had bitten my arm three months ago throbbed. As I pushed myself to my feet, the world seemed to spin around me. I retched and vomited chunks of raw meat onto the carefully swept stones of Maeve’s courtyard.

  I couldn’t go to bed in such a state. At the very least, I had to wash. Maeve would certainly wake and question me. It was best that I face her, I decided, best that I ask the help of this wise and powerful woman. After all, at that time she seemed my dearest friend, indeed my only real friend in this strange land. Even now, after all that has happened, I still think of her that way. I took a deep breath and went inside.

  When I lit a candle, I saw that Maeve wasn’t at home.

  As the morning brightened, I thought of the danger these night walks of mine must pose to the child within me, and I vowed they would stop. I was no longer the fool I had been when Vhar and I happened into this blighted land. But, until this morning, I had run from the truth. Now I faced it squarely. One by one, I considered and dismissed possible explanations for my memory lapses, my strange walks. In the end, only one explanation remained. The test for it was simple.

  I dug into the box where my few possessions were stored and found the silver knife I had carried through so many trials. Gritting my teeth, I pressed the blade against the scar of the wolf bite on my arm.

  A searing pain flowed through me, a pain not just from the blade-shaped burn that formed on my arm, but also from the finality of understanding exactly what I had become.

  Lycanthrope. Werewolf.

  I had hoped for a happier answer. Still, truth was better than ignorance. Later in the day, I walked down the road to the inn. I remembered how Andor had pulled his hand back from my husband’s silver blade, and how he wore a silver wolf pendant.

  The inn had no customers when I arrived. Andor sat with Dirca at a table near the door. I went to him, laid the knife on the table, and showed him the blade-shaped burn on my arm. “Take her to Ivar,” he said to his wife. I picked up the blade and followed Dirca through the kitchen to the family’s private quarters. From a small interior room, a staircase descended in a long spiral into the earth. I stayed close to the wall as I tried my best to keep pace with the woman.

  At the bottom of the stairs was a narrow passage with a number of dark branches that reminded me of my flight through the cave only weeks before. The main passage led to a long, stone-walled room, which smelled of musty paper and dried herbs. The space was filled with leather-bound books and stacks of scrolls. Two lamps lit the room—one near the door and a second at the rear of it. There, Ivar sat at a plain, wooden table, his long, white hair forming a feathery cowl over his face. As we neared him, I saw that he was making notes in the margins of one of the books. Though he must have heard us approaching, he didn’t look up until his thought was finished.

  Though I knew him, I felt embarrassed and tongue-tied. But his plain gray eyes were so filled with compassion, his smile so sincere that I smiled in turn and went to sit by his side. Dirca left us, and I told him everything.

  “Am I harming my child?” I asked when I had finished.

  He paused long enough to open a book and read a few words. With one hand resting on a copper coin on his table, the other on my growing belly, he closed his eyes. A moment later he opened them and shook his head. “Your son has a strong mind. He seems well,” Ivar said.

  “A son,” I repeated, breathless. “Do I harm him when I change?”

  “The harm you do to yourself will harm him. That is enough.”

  “Can you alter what has happened to me?”

  “No. But there are other ways to help you. Come.”

  Opening a long box that lay beside one wall, he produced and unrolled a woolen carpet covered with runes. We sat on it, facing one another, the lit incense burner between us giving off the scent of young grass in spring. He placed an earthen plate beside the burner, and set a small lump of silver in it.

  The ritual began.

  I had been prepared for pain and terrible visions, for that is what the mage in our village had always inflicted on those unfortunate enough to need his help. Instead, as Ivar’s hands moved like pale shadows through the rising green smoke, I felt my soul lighten, the burdens of the past weeks lift. As the rite drew to a close, Ivar’s hands curled above the silver nugget, and strands of blue flame arched between them. The light grew, shining cold and blue through the incense-filled room. Then, with a final incantation, he pointed both hands at the silver nugget. Flames flowed from his fingers. The silver melted, glowed, and reformed in the image of a wolf.

  When it had cooled, he placed it on a chain and fastened it around my neck. “I haven’t altered your life, for that is beyond my power, but I have given you a choice,” he said. “As long as you wear this amulet, you can resist the change into beast form.”

  I didn’t ask what would happen if I took the pendant off. I had no intention of ever doing so. “Andor brought me my money. I can pay whatever I owe you,” I said, thinking that such a spell wouldn’t come cheaply.

  “It is my spell that keeps the gate of the Guardians shut against strangers, child. Do you think I feel no guilt that I worded my spell so that ‘no one from the dark domains may enter these walls, save those who have the calling’? The dark souls of the tapestry had little use for a greedy craftsman and his wife, save that you might pass my wardings and steal the cloth. I have changed the wards since then, but cannot return you to your land. For that, I owe you what little happiness I can give. Now place your knife on the carpet.”

  After another incantation, brie
fer than the last, he returned the blade to me. I felt the warmth of the spell as I grasped it.

  “As you change, silver will become more deadly to you. But not this knife. It has served you well in the past. It will continue to do so.”

  I looked down at it, so heavy and beautiful in my hands, then at Ivar’s pale, kind face. “May I?” I muttered and kissed his hands.

  As soon as she saw me, Maeve detected the change. I sensed it in the way she watched me when I returned, the sly smile that touched her lips when her eyes met mine, the way she glanced curiously over her shoulder before—dressed in her dark hunter’s clothes—she left.

  I didn’t care. I slept soundly for the first night in many, without even the hint of a nightmare. Ivar had freed me.

  Maeve hadn’t returned by morning. This absence wasn’t unusual, and I was hardly concerned as I went about my work—opening the shutters to let in the morning air and laying the dried dung chips in the stove over last night’s banked embers. Soon I had made a pot of tea, toasted biscuits, and spread them with jam. I was carrying my meal outside to eat in the morning sun when Maeve’s door flew open.

  Viktor, one of the men Maeve sometimes met in the tavern, stood in the doorway, his face livid. “Where is she?” he bellowed. “She was supposed to meet me last night, and she didn’t.” He looked at her mirror, her pots of rouge, the gold ring beside them—reminders of her. As he stared at them, his rage dissolved into tears that seemed out of place on his coarse face. “Give her this. Tell her that if it isn’t me, it will be no man,” he said, thrust a box into my already full hands, and left as abruptly as he had arrived.

  The teacup tipped, the hot liquid scalding my hands as the cup fell and shattered. The box fell as well, flying open when it hit the floor. A gold ring rolled into the darkness beneath Maeve’s bureau. I retrieved the ring first, surprised to see that Viktor’s gift was a man’s ring with another woman’s name engraved inside it. Cleaning up the tea and the cup, I kept the ring and box in my pocket until Maeve returned. I laid the box in her hand, then went for her tea, bringing it to her at her dressing table, never saying a word of reproach.